Last week I promised to examine the various proposals that the current crop of Democratic presidential candidates are proposing. Cory Booker is proposing “baby bonds,” a savings account for every newborn, with preference to those in poverty. This would amount to $1000 for each child, to be added to by “as much as” $2000 each year until the age of 18. Now it’s true that black families are disproportionately below the poverty line, but if black families aren’t singled out racially, it isn’t reparations, it’s just another anti-poverty program, maybe even a good one, but call it what it is. […]
Category: Race
Reparations
Reparations for the enslavement and subsequent discrimination against black people has been the most important issue facing U. S. society at least since 1865, if not 1619. It is a very good thing that the issue has been placed on 2020 presidential campaign agenda by Harris, Warren, and Booker, no matter what other disagreements we may have with them. [I’m still supporting Bernie, even though he has waffled on this issue – I’m hopeful his position will evolve.] Next week I’ll examine all their proposals, but my first impression is that all of them hesitate on the issue of race, […]
MLK calls for Reparations
“At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land. Through an act of Congress, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the mid-West, which meant it was willing to under girth its peasants from Europe with an economic floor. But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided country agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize […]
White Knight Re-issued for the 40th Anniversary of Jonestown
White Knight or how one man came to believe that he was the one who caused the San Francisco City Hall killings and the Jonestown Massacre — A novel by Henry Hitz In 1977, a fireman named Dan White saved a woman and her babies from a fire in the Geneva Towers apartments in San Francisco. It is this scene which opens White Knight, the story of one witness to that fire, Barney Blatz, and his entanglement with the political and personal catastrophe which followed. With the November, 1978 Jonestown Massacre of 912 people and, nine days later, White’s murder of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, the city and Barney unraveled. “There’s a bumper sticker that reads ‘Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from […]
A Day of Atonement for Jonestown
It was a beautiful event commemorating Jonestown on November 18. If you click on the picture above, it should take you to the video. I’ve already characterized Jonestown in a previous blog entry as among the worst incidences of white supremacist genocide in our country’s blood history, perhaps comparable only to the Trail of Tears which killed 4000 Cherokees. This conclusion is based on the results of the Jonestown tragedy, 918 killed, 70% of them black. Results reflect intentions. But this understanding doesn’t explain what happened. Calling People’s Temple a cult as People Magazine did recently doesn’t explain anything either. […]
Jonestown 40th Anniversary
It’s the 40th anniversary of Jonestown. I’ve read most of what’s been written about this unspeakable tragedy and wrote of it in my novel White Knight (or how one man came to believe that he was the one who caused the San Francisco City Hall killings and the Jonestown Massacre). I’ve come to conclude that essence of the mass killings of Jonestown was white supremacist genocide. 70% (691) of the victims were black, and most tragically, 303 were minors. Yes, Jones was a paranoid, narcissistic, drug-addled demagogue, but there are a lot of those in the world and they don’t […]
Open all borders
The caravan of 7000 refugees headed through Mexico to the U. S. border is an embarrassment to liberals and establishment Democrats, and may even cause them to fail to retake the house. But from what I can tell, this caravan/march is really a spontaneous anti-imperialist movement with one crucial demand: open all borders. None of the news stories I’ve read say anything about the politics of this march. The New York Times mentions “activists” with no other identification. But the opening of borders is an essential step to achieving the kind of egalitarian society world wide that many of us […]
The arc of history is long but it bends toward justice
Somehow I am still optimistic for the long term. Short term not so much. As MLK said, “the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.” I believe this is true. Short term, I think we’re in deep shit. Concentration camps for tender aged children? How bad does it have to get before the left realizes that it is our disunity which has fostered this situation? I’m going to be harsh here. People who vote their “conscience” instead of voting strategically are guilty of what we used to call bourgeois individualism, the antithesis of solidarity. The objective is […]
The Poor People’s Campaign
Happy Birthday, Malcolm X! Finally. The movement we have been waiting for since 1968 has sprung on the scene that for some time has been mired in hopelessness. Hundreds marched in 30 state capitols on June 14. Some 300 were arrested committing civil disobedience. This is a game changer. Check out the demands of this movement and see if you can find ways to disagree with them lol. (Isn’t that what we on the left do too much of?). End systemic racism. End poverty and inequality. End war and militarism. End ecological devastation. But not in the abstract. Each of […]